Read Online Sky's Dark Labyrinth by Stuart Clark - Free Book Online Page A

honest. It was a formula that served them well. Even Pippe beside him had gone quiet.
    The Jesuits had been in existence for only twenty years when Bellarmine had joined them, himself only just eighteen. In those days, Rome had been floundering, having still not recovered from its sacking by Emperor Charles V’s mutinous hordes. It was an aimless city, its people undirected and the Pope’s authority withered to a dry thread. In the face of this emasculation, the Jesuits had offered a new way forwards, a fearless way built on the intellectual mastery of spirituality, theology and philosophy.
    Bellarmine thanked God every day for guiding him into their ranks. His father had hoped he would become a politician and restore the family’s ebbing prestige, but his mother had seen the real path. She had believed in Church over State and had quietly urged him into the Jesuits. ‘They need thinkers like you,’ she would whisper to him, stoking his young ambition. ‘Lutheranism is a plague; their beliefs are the buboes of evil. Only Catholicism can lead people to salvation.’
    As Bellarmine had matured and studied, so he had watched Rome become strong again. As the buildings rose once more, so the people remembered their purpose, and a new determination took hold to lead the rest of Europe back to the one true Church. He also understood how the Jesuit determination had led this charge. The Vatican owed them a mighty debt. Without them … Bellarmine shuddered to think how far the Protestant heresies would have spread and how many souls would have been lost to the fires of damnation.
    Reaching the top of the familiar steps, he glanced over at his hesitant companion. ‘Don’t worry, Cardinal Pippe, Father Clavius can’t take your birthday away from you again.’
    Pippe pulled a sour face.
    They disappeared into the shadows of the entrance hall, and the heat of the day dropped immediately. Bellarmine led the way through the stone pillars supporting the domed ceiling, down the lofty corridors that skirted the courtyard, and finally up a sweeping staircase to an office on the first floor.
    He knocked and led Pippe inside to where Father Clavius was waiting behind a desk strewn with papers. The Professor of Mathematics radiated concern. His squat body comfortably filled the chair, and his snowy beard lined a square jaw. Below his black biretta, his brow was pinched into deep furrows.
    â€˜I don’t know you,’ said Clavius in his age-deepened voice, staring past Bellarmine.
    â€˜This is Cardinal Pippe, recently appointed to the Inquisition offices,’ said Bellarmine.
    Clavius cocked his head, ‘Dominican?’
    â€˜Yes, sir,’ Pippe answered with an unusual lack of volume.
    â€˜Thank you both for coming over to see me. Please be seated.’ The visitors settled into ornate wooden chairs, carved with griffin heads. ‘As this is a day for introductions, let me present Father Grienberger.’
    Next to him stood a giant of a man in black Jesuit robes. He was perhaps a decade older than Pippe, with an unreadable expression that Bellarmine found both compelling and unnerving in equal measures. He remained standing.
    â€˜Father Grienberger has distinguished himself in mathematics. I dare say he will follow me into this very chair when my time comes.’
    Grienberger’s face betrayed nothing.
    â€˜Good. Let us proceed to the matter in hand.’ Atop the various manuscripts and letters on Clavius’s desk was a leather-bound book. Its cover bore the marks of repeated readings. Clavius placed a liver-spotted hand on it, as if taking an oath. ‘We hear from Prague that a Lutheran astronomer called Johannes Kepler has recently become an assistant to Tycho Brahe, the Imperial Mathematician to Rudolph II.’
    â€˜Why should this concern us?’ asked Bellarmine.
    â€˜Kepler is a supporter of Copernicus,’ said Clavius.
    Pippe snorted, his